It has been used by parents all over the US as justification to beat their kids on a regular basis at the behest of the bible. A few are now on trial for murder.

EDIT: I made that assumption on reading it before going further down the posts to see where the source of this text was. I stupidly misattributed this text. However, this same concept is in the book that I cited above. So both of these guys are d-bags who promote child abuse based on biblical teachings.

In states where gay couples cannot adopt, they make it absolutely impossible for the partner to do anything towards the well being of the child, up to and including removal of the child if there is any reason to doubt the ability of the adopted parent to properly care for the child.

This would mean one social worker visit witnessing that there is a same sex partner could have the child taken away and placed in foster care. It means that if the adoptive parent dies, the partner has no custodial rights at all, and the child and partner are separated at a time where the presence of the other is possibly the only thing that lessens the pain of the lost parent/partner. Partner not allowed to visit child in hospital, and can be forcibly removed from the building.

I would think that most case workers would overlook the partner as they are usually more concerned with with a childs actual welfare. However, one by-the-books case worker or a holy-roller and then there could be a court case. Someones gotta be the first to fight it. I know nobody wants to be the example, but if I were gay I would push the limits wherever I could because that's probably how their rights are going to be obtained.

I agree with you, to an extent, but in a caring, loving, relationship it is difficult to ask that your partner be willing to place themselves into such a potential world of emotional pain. It can quite easily become a "them or me" situation, no matter how well intended.

In a world where society makes it so incredibly difficult for homosexuals to simple be who they are, it is often just too much to face this also.

Come to Canada, I know plenty of women who have offered to be surrogate to the child to be of their homosexual friends. I even offered myself once, but they had already chosen someone. You might not be able to change the mindset of those who are around you, but you can change where you are. Good luck to you :)

Haha. When I said I didn't want to date the neighbors son my parents called me an abomination to God and beat me with an extension cord. They left a cool cross-shaped scar pattern on my back, so I'll always remember that Jesus loves me.

This. If the child cannot comprehend that the reason why pain is inflicted upon it, then it is just hurting the child and making it develop worse. I think it's 12 months plus before they would comprehend. So breaking their child before then is pure child abuse.

Also all the general hitting a young child due to religious reasons too.

Oh, well the way they "break" one that young is not by hitting it...but by basically waterboarding it. They'll take the kid, and hold its face under the faucet until it stops crying, then turn off the water. If it starts up crying again after it catches its breath, it's back under the faucet. They'll do this, choking and partially drowning the baby until it is too tired to cry.

I'm only surprised that everyone isn't more aware of it. At the time, being children, it just seemed like life was made of pain and tyranny. Homeschooling and all that happened, so our entire world was church and the bible, and they all agreed, after all.
Ended up kicked out and in state custody at 12, once I ran out of fucks to give for fear and its patriarchs, but my siblings had to stay longer. Indoctrination, fear, lack of legal recourse/knowledge, you know the drill. It was always a game of leverage, at our house.

Wasn't fuck all I could do about it. Probably the worst part of the whole situation, leaving them there, to go through that. But hell, I ended up having my own, state-based adventures, so it worked out well for everyone...

We're all pretty fucked up now, needless to say. I'm trying to save them, though! Mostly failing, because I'm obviously fucked up too, but I'm the oldest, so... The youngest is 17 now, but we're all pretty much trapped in various forms of survival instinct level reaction, and will probably act out one cliche of perpetual failure or another until we die miserable if I can't... yeah. Sorry for the munchausen, could have gotten carried away for the next 25 years, there. Never mind all that.

My point is that this is the norm in the circles we were a part of [the severely insulated circles, but the norm nevertheless], though, to be honest, I think our situation was probably of a particularly rare level of sheer violence. In any case, it's fucking ruinous, and horrifying, and disgusting, but when they celebrate a man agreeing to murder his child to prove his love to the god they worship, there's not a lot of headway to make, morally speaking.

This is shocking. Do you really think many people are brought up in the same way? This is so far removed from my world and my upbringing that I really don't have the capacity to imagine it. The best I can do is imagine some kind of 19th century scenario, like something from Dickens, like David Copperfield or something.

What does the 'pain and tyranny' contain? Were you punished physically every day? In what ways did this 'fuck up' yourself and your siblings? How are you guys dealing with this now? Have all of you lost your belief in god or did your parents succeed in beating god into all of you?

Sorry about the many questions, but I think I should take the opportunity provided by the internet to catch a glimpse of the lives of people who live a world apart. I'm very curious about your story. I hope you're getting on well now.

I'm in the middle of a long reply to this, but if I end up doing an AMA as P2000 suggested, I might save it for there, yeah?

I appreciate curiosity, and this kind of evil definitely needs as much light on it as possible. Would be more than happy to answer questions, just don't want to get redundant, running around reddit telling the same sob story 300 times.

If I don't get any reply about that and get it set up, I'll finish my answers to you and just go from there.

I mean, I've browsed a couple, doomtree, NDgT, so forth, but I'm new enough here that I'm generally unfamiliar with the procedure and etiquette that goes into these things.

All I've done on reddit so far is lurk and drop a small handful of comments.

I agree that it could be important, though. I've already written three thousand words about it since I tried to answer the first response to my comment... And I'm summarizing events for even those few years pretty severely, but to be honest, my life hasn't really gotten less traumatically eventful since, so I don't even know where one thread ends and a new one begins. Not sure which part to isolate, or what the overall purpose would be. Just do a biopsy on the jesus beating portion, maybe?

Eh. I'd be happy to do this, I think. I could just use a little direction in a few regards.

TIL

Stories about abuse, molestation, or mental disorders are too common, and should be posted in /r/MiniBio or /r/Self.

if your on FB look up the IFB cult survivors group, me and hundreds of other people have a same background of having to spend most of our lives living like that, and it's a great place to try an get info on how to deal with getting them out of such an abusive life of church owned slavery (p.s I'm writing this at 3AM and I'm not sober so please forgive me if i dont make sense or something....)

I found this passage quoted on many discussion forums—always disapprovingly, in the ones I looked at.

It's from an article called “The Correction and Salvation of Children” by Ronald E. Williams; he is identified at the web site below as “director of Hephzibah House, a home for 'troubled' teens [girls, actually]” in Winona Lake, Indiana. The complete text of the article is given here, copied (it says) from its original publication site, from which it has been deleted:

I think it comes from the idea that we are all "fallen" because of Adam and Eve (especially Eve!). And so it is in our "nature" to be willful and bad. And some folks think hard and think they have to "break a child's will" in order for them to be saved.
And, yes, it sure looks like insanity from here.

It's amusing to me that so many christians think of islam as this horribly oppressive religion but so much of christianity is eerily similar and equally as degrading/hateful to others.

Now, part of this guy's parenting issues are himself of course but does anyone actually think he'd think this way or treat his kid like this if he had grown up his whole life without ever being exposed to religion?

Especially since I just learned that up until the age of 6, a child is mainly in their subconscience mind, meaning this abuse will be with them forever, also something they might act out on later in life when they also have children.

No matter what though, this will cause trauma. I don't care what anyone else says, it's never okay to hit your child with a belt, rod anything. I have horrible memories of being hit when I was 6 years old for simply not wanting to go to church.

Forgive the rant, but seeing this fills me with an emotion that is not adequately described in human vocabulary. Rage comes nowhere near close.

Seriously, JUST fuck everything about it?

NO! One trillion times NO! No act in history has been depraved enough to act as a suitable punishment, no, a suitable excuse of a fascimile of a punishment, for this, thing that put these words to paper. If given even in jest, the person ought still be given the harshest rebuke.

This excuse of a sentient entity is a failure as a parent and as a human being. I would say he is a waste of carbon but even THAT is too high an honor for one so low. To break a human being at such a young age, when all they are capable of is consuming food, excreting waste, and seeking love and bonding is an affront to any remotely moral or good principles.

To destroy any will at any age is truly repulsive, not only damaging the individual but society as a whole. To deprive one the chance to even experience having a will, is to degrade them to a thing. To deny them the ability to wish and dream, is not only an exercise of the most profound stupidity, but also the single most undeniably evil act one can undertake. This man espousing it as holy or laudable fills me with far too much, raw and seething loathing, to show anything remotely resembling pity for his obvious insanity.

If we have such a thing as a soul, our will, our capacity to decide and make judgments, is the extension by which a soul can show, or arguably attain, its existence. Denying something its existence, yet not having the decency to end its life, is far worse than some god sending you to hell. At least this god allowed you your choice, it let you have a life, it let you experience joy, sorrow, pride and regret. This man would leave his children an automaton, the shattered remnant of what could be called a soul stuck for all of existence in a prison of pain.

The pain of having lost what they could have been, what they could have done, this will remain in the back of the resulting child's mind for his whole existence. If it managed to re-kindle into the flame that is the human "Spirit", I say spirit for there is no other accurate word to describe it, it would be a miracle, but I digress.

I do not say this rant solely out of hatred, but to allow this seething emotion to subside enough for me to go to bed, get on with my life, and know that I will NEVER do anything of this sort to my children.

One year? Fuck everything jeez. What kind of sick mind sees a child at play and thinks there's something wrong with that? Children have some of the most amazing imaginations - I can't imagine a world in which every child doesn't play, imagine, and explore their world.

Damnit. I bet even Voldemort would be a better parent than these guys.

Unfortunately this is not uncommon, even in non-religious families. (like mine). My father felt that a child having his/her own will is wrong and he used to beat us, verbally abuse us in order to break us. His favourite part of it was when we break down and pleaded with him to stop making our lives hell.

This used to be the common, accepted principle in child rearing. The child was to be absolutely obedient and deferent and any show of independent will was taken to be an act of direct defiance and a straightforward attack against the parents and their authority. Not to mention a sign that the child was willful, wicked and evil.
They wrote this in popular child rearing manuals for gods' sakes.

Of course, that resulted in insecure adults who among other issues, could not face anything they deemed a threat to their own egos or authority and who had a huge need to find some of the control they were never allowed to learn as kids. Who then of course had a deep seated internal need to beat every sign of independent will out of their own kids. And so on.

My dad was what I hope to have been one of the last remnants of such generational pathology and I can clearly recognise the same general attitude here, even though my parents never went as far as to beat me senseless. People like this honestly should have their kids taken away from them, as they are to a large extent so set in their ways that there's no hope they will ever change. And meanwhile they're destroying the lives of their kids.

For what it's worth, I emailed the link to the original text to Indiana's CPS, though I seriously suspect they already are well aware of this. Just trying to make myself feel better, I suppose... Since I can't personally go there and grab these kids away from this arsehole.

So for some reason this has crossed a previously unknown line in my brain. I ask the following in complete seriousness:

At what point do we, as reasonable logical people, have a responsibility to say "this has gone to fucking far" all Christians, all people of every religion, to me, bear responsibility for this. When do we simply say that for the good of society and the earth all religion must be eradicated now and with force. When do we say, fuck the courts I am gonna take you out. I understand it is simply lowering ourselves to there level but seriously...I don't know why this did it but I think its because its about abusing a fucking infant. This isn't fucking sparta. People who believe this are not swayed by anything less than force. They are baser forms of the human species.

This is why education is so important. There needs to be a bigger push to educate these people so they don't come to ridiculous conclusions that their child has the ability to reason out its behaviour at the age of one for fucks sake. ಠ_ಠ

I suspect that people who do this sort of thing are acting to satisfy their sadistic urges. Teaching them that what they're doing is simply causing suffering needlessly will do no good, since that's their (perhaps subconscious) goal.

Yep. Source would be nice. But I do not doubt it because I have heard people talk like this:

"Babies are born wrathful. Just look at all of their screaming..."

One of the guys in my college frat was a fundie who thought he could live in both worlds. One day he lost it and just started spouting this shit at me. I tried to imagine whole churches and towns that thought this way, and it just produced an earthquake in my heart.

I have 2 kids, and the only times I have ever laid a finger on either of them was if one of them was consistently doing something dangerous and scolding wasn't enough to get their attention. Even then it was a "bop" on the bottom or a slap on the wrist. And you know what? My kids are fucking AWESOME.

I can't think of a punishment suitable enough for this sick fuck. If people have known about this for so long, how is it possible that he is still in charge of a home for troubled teen-aged girls?

This filth is what makes atheists "militant". Thank you posting. Let's spread the word, see if they're getting any kind of government funding, and see if there is a way of shutting them down and jailing them.

positive reinforcement is far better than negative. look how easy it is with dogs. its much easier with humans because we can fucking talk. all abusing someone does is make them hate you and want to be either rebellious, or afraid.

I will never lie to or abuse my child. I have hope for my generation (90's kids).

Cue the self-reinforcing cycle of seriously screwed-up people begetting seriously screwed up children. These people shouldn’t be allowed to breed, much less be allowed within ten meters of any unsupervised children.

"even though he has been fed, clothed, diapered, and cared for in every other way."

Hmmm... Perhaps they should have said "cared for in every other way which our little insulated, sheltered minds can think of."

Perhaps the child is suffering emotional-malnutrition due to being immersed in violent hypocrisy, ignorance, cruelty, and stupidity. WTF??? Have we not surpassed the fallacy of: "if it requires patience and effort to fathom then immediately beat it into your private narcissistic-object?"

My fundie parents teach parenting workshops at my former church, and they always encourage spanking with the goal of "breaking your child's self will." And as an argument in favor of spanking, they always say rather smugly that spanking is good because "it works." Like somehow that makes it okay. No shit, beating your child into submission and emotionally traumatizing them every time they do something wrong is very effective.

My parents held views that were pretty close to this when I was young. They felt that any expression of autonomy and self-determination was a child's sinful nature, and that Satan was working through it. They called it "rebelliousness" and told me several times that I was "a rebellious son" and if we had lived "in Bible times" they would have stoned me to death.

I'm still pretty bitter about that, even at thirty years old. It led to a lot of mental/emotional issues and substance abuse problems for me.

This makes my blood boil. It is unbelievable, incomprehensible to a right minded individual, to think of breaking a child's will and self-image before it ever has a chance to grow. You want to talk about indoctrination? This is it. You want to talk about the basest forms of oppression? This is it.

I fit the general definition of 'pacifist', but this makes me want to pick up a baseball bat and and a rope and go lynch the fucker who wrote it. There are only so many things in this world that are precious and innocent and loving and trusting like a child. They should be cherished like the gems they are, especially when they are learning to express themselves. Correct them for FSM's sake, but don't BEAT them.

The idea that a person should completely subvert the will of their children is just evil. That's what this is: evil.

What? You don't believe that a talking snake induced thousands or millions of generations of humans to be chastized by their creator and tortured for all eternity? What kind of a lunatic denies that talking snakes have such power?

Sarcasm aside, I think it is more important to disbelieve the concept of vicarious punishment (ie. that someone else can take your punishment for you). That would be like murderers allowing a friend to take their place in jail. Highly immoral, yet the foundation for Christianity (ie. Jesus takes your sins for you).

Damn, that was disturbing to read. Is the rod of correction daddy's baseball bat? Who ever wrote this is a massive jackass. I don't like children, but I would never hit one, especially not in the name of religious beliefs.

This is why it is so difficult to change people's beliefs. There is an entire series on youtube about this called "The Bomb In The Brain" discussing research as it pertains to trauma during childhood forming beliefs as opposed to evidence.

If I ever meet the person (man or woman) that this quote derives from. I swear on an autographed photo of NDT that I will punch them straight in their fucking mouths with all of the rage fuelled strength I can muster. And that's a promise to you reddit.

I never considered disciplining any of my children in any fashion until it was obvious that they were intentionally breaking the rules rather than, you know, just being babies. The age that this starts happening can vary wildly with each child. Why would you punish a baby? Is there any possible way for the baby to connect the punishment to the action he/she performed? If not, then what good is it?

Why? Kids honestly do crave structure and need to be taught manners, not to beat their younger siblings, etc. is it not 'correction' to try to inhibit the behavior of peeing in their pants, but rather using the toilet? Is it not correction to try to stop a child from beating their newborn sister in the head with a toy truck?

This goal is going to tamper with the fact that there might be a great mind within this kid. They shouldn't be able to take the kids imagination away. Kids shouldn't have to be exposed to reality right away. They should have fun and grow.

Abortion is bad, but physical abuse of a baby is good? WTF?!!? Consider my mind blown. Don't get me wrong, sometimes an ass bustin' is needed. I had my britches dusted more than once in my life, but it was always a last resort, and I knew exactly why it was happening. My mom always had a Q&A session before and after the whoopin' to make sure. It went like this; "You know why you're being punished?" "You know why it was wrong?" and once it was all over but the crying, "You know what will happen if you do it again?"

I have raised three well adjusted kids without using the rod (or striking in any fashion) at all. That's not to say there hasn't been "physical" discipline - eg carrying a screaming and kicking 4 year old into their bed. But for the most part, it is indeed posible to raise kids through communication and cooperation, rather than through physical domination. Some countries have even outlawed corporal punishment of minors.

My parents went to religious schools in Trinidad where being beaten/hit was common. (My dad is Chinese and my mom is Indian/Trini)

They raised us in the States and we had "the rod" as well; which they would hit us with if we every misbehaved. My friends freaked out when I talked about this when I was older. It never phased me as I never thought what my parents were doing was wrong.

They know that my brother and I are atheists and they realy don't care. Starting in high school, we started to "rebel" against our parents...but in a very mature way. We didn't disobey them, but we started to question them and force them to use logic to explain themselves.

It actually made our relationship a lot better. Although we still are very respectful towards our parents, we disagree with them and reason with them until a win/win situation is reached.

It makes me disgusted with some people when I hear them talking to those who are older than them in a disrepectful tone. But thats the way I was raised and the culture I grew into.

Either way; I was often beaten as a child; but ONLY if I did something wrong. I turned out ok.
I would never use that on my children...but just a thought.

How in the most literal sense of fuck do you break the will of a baby? I wasn't even aware they had developed wills that early... on second thought, I'd probably rather not know, already enough rage from reading this horrid shit.